Mr. Speaker, in a letter to me that included references to the Quebec City bridge, the Minister of Transport wrote, and I quote: "At a time when restructuring has made it necessary for CN to cut personnel, the company could hardly be expected to spend substantial sums of money out of mere aesthetic considerations".
How can the Minister of Transport claim that the maintenance of a major structure that is part of the railway network is merely a matter of aesthetics, when rust is eating away at the structure, which is bound to shorten its life expectancy?